Chinese Toilets Part One: Hutong

You knew it was only a matter of time...

OK picture the scene, its early autumn, the air is warm, the sun soft and a light breeze is blowing through the hutong (alleyway), knocking the first leaves of the autumn shed off the trees and onto the street. The picture is lovely, old Chinese men and woman sitting about chatting, young children playing, street vendors selling their wares.

Of course, i haven't noticed any of this because for the last 45 minutes on the subway home from work I have been doing my best Zen Buddhist impersonations to stop myself from wetting my pants! I was absolutely busting beyond anything you can imagine. Half-way through the hutong my bladder gave me a choice, either find a toilet NOW!!!!! or you'll be walking the remaining ten minutes with wet trousers...

Ok, ok, so I've been in China for 3 months now, I've walked through the hutong to the subway maybe 100 times, and I know that every 10 metres there is a public toilet. I know this, not just because I have seen people entering the buildings carrying toilet paper, but because, as you can imagine, in 40 degree heat with that many public toilets in a small area, well, lets just say there is a fragrance that is unmistakable.

I have avoided using these toilets, firstly because they bloody stink, and secondly they are frequented by locals. You see most Hutong houses don't have bathrooms, and so these public toilets aren't so much public as they are communal.

Anyway, so there I stand, either use the hutong toilet, or piss my pants. The choice was obvious...

But given that the sun was still up, and because I'm foreign people tend to notice me, I couldn't wet myself. The hutong toilet it was!

As I entered I realised that rather than using doors, the toilets are designed with a couple of little hallways that turn back on themselves, that way, no one has to touch a filthy door handle, and no-one on the street can see in the toilet area. Upon entering the main chamber, I was almost completely overwhelmed by the stink. I had to close my eyes for a few minutes to stop myself from passing out.

When I opened them, my bladder noticed the urinals on the wall in front of me, and without going into too much detail, I was thankful that I was wearing trousers with a zip and not button fly jeans.

While I was standing there I heard a friendly,

"Ni Hao" (hello)

from behind me. I couldn't turn fully around for obvious reasons, so I just turn my head as far as I could without peeing on the floor, (not sure why this bothered me, the place smelt like someone washed the floor with pee!) but there was no one there... in fact, there was nothing there, nothing at all.

I finished up and turned around properly, again no one there. Unfortunately, before my conscious mind could process what was happening and where the sound was coming from my eyes had already looked down.

staring back at me, in the sort of amazement locals that haven't seen a foreigner up close get, was a lovely chap in full squat, half-way through laying a cable. Toilet paper in one hand, cigarette in the other.

I hadn't noticed due to the smell when I first arrived, but the main chamber was just that, a room about 6 metres by 6 metres, tiled from floor to ceiling and completely empty except the 4 squat toilets in the floor and two urinals on the walls. No cubicles, no sinks, not even an ashtray!!

Oh and not to mention the lovely chap, who by now was finishing off his business and ready to leave with me.

I left, relieved and a little shocked.

I don't know why i was so shocked by it. For many Chinese (usually older or poorer) communal toilets are just a way of life. They don't think about it; at all. Why should they? Why would you waste your thinking on something everyone does, everyday.

Furthermore, who cares if someone is with you while your shitting? I mean really, what sort of weirdo would want to watch someone else take a crap? seriously, you simple go in, do your business and leave. enough said.

How different we are in the west. I can't even poo at work if I hear someone enter the bathroom... and I'm locked, safe and anonymous in a cubicle!! I think the Chinese have it right:

firstly - squat - its healthier for your bowels, and there is no skin contact with any surface
secondly - communal - as the saying goes, 'a community that shits together stays together'

Just to confirm, I have since used several public toilets in china, and none have even come close to the hutong in terms of their communal nature or their smell. All public toilets stink, but that toilet on that day, was something else.

Furthermore, this decline in communal style toilets in China is actually a bad thing. The more they move to more western privacy style toilets, the more they will lose sight of the equality of all people, and so the more they will strive to have more and more, striving to keep up with the Jones's. This will be the end of us all!!

For as the great philosopher Montaigne so eloquently stated,

"Even kings shit!"

anyway, sermon and funny story over!

'Get the Beers In' suffer first loss in 12 games

Well I guess the dream run had to come to an end eventually. After a horrific start to last season, we managed to put a string of wins together up there with the mighty Gers 9 in a row. We were unstoppable, but due to the short season and the general rubbishness of the bottom and middle teams we were unable to catch the two teams ahead of us on the table. So we missed promotion to the top flight by 2 points. An absolute tragedy for our fans... well ok, our fan base consists of 5 members, who it is rumoured are also the team members... but nevertheless it was hard to take.

So, we have just started the new season, and buoyed by our previous success we opened the season with a 6-1 drumming of the 'China Sports Daily' team. you'd think a team made up of sports reporters would be ok... you'd be wrong.

Then we played our new rivals, 'the azzurri', now I know what you're thinking, bloody Italians. But in fact they are a team of 6 or 7 Chinese guys, all of which can play, and at least two of which have a tight perm leading into a delicious mullet.

This is a long season, and we will play everyone twice, but again the middle to lower ranks are rubbish, so its a bit like the SPL, its a two team race, and who draws first blood has the advantage.

The ref (who is a lovely bloke) pulled me aside before the match and said something cryptic in half English half Chinese. I had no idea what he was talking about, so he made it very clear...

"they are very good, they will win"

Yeah thanks mate! I said.

10 minutes in, their lightening pace and ball control meant they were all over us, but we held firm. Shot after shot, we held.

Then, in true poachers style, we nicked a goal. Vere, our giant English midfielder-cum-defender-cum-striker, was in the right place at the right time to slot away a deflected cross.

1-0, and the perm brigade started to panic.

Moments later, Aubrey, our Dutch super star, was wedged between two players about 5 metres out from goal, a third defender was approaching (Chinese do not hack, like Aussies and Brits), so he rolled the ball left as if he was going to try and break through, but half way through the roll, dropped his foot back, and toe poked it at goal...

2-0, and the perms were starting to frizz. I wink at the ref, and give him a big, 'stick that up your arse smile'

After the break they started to get nasty: lots of hacks, and verbal abuse. There's a funny thing, they would slag us in Chinese, we'd slag them in English, neither knew what was being said, but both knew it was nasty... its quite nice, you can't snap in case they aren't talking about you, but you still get fired up, in case they are!

5 minutes to go, and the wheels well and truly fell off the Beers. Two lucky long range curlers put them equal. Then, 1 minute from time, the head perm and trash talking ring leader, looses a shot that Georg "The Hammer" Albertz would have been proud of, and...

2-3 the perms go wild. And the ref winks at me and gives me the 'i told you so' smile... prick!

Getting beat was bad enough, but after he scored, the head perm ran around us yelling:

"win-ah, win-ah, we win-ah"

Devastating. It took me two days to get over it... but never fear as they say in the classics...

NO SURRENDER

we'll beat them next time round and hopefully win the comp on goal difference!

Update and stuff

I've been copping a little flack in the comments section about having posts with just pictures and no words. Naturally I take these comments positively and assume that you all love my magical writing so much and are merely disappointed with the lack of words. So much for a picture saying a thousand words!

Anyway this post is an update, and an update is what you'll get....in words.

Let's start with the lovely Skye. She's great! Irritatingly her Chinese language ability far outweighs mine. She just has a knack for proper pronunciation, which, as you may be aware is all that really matters in Chinese. For example, the sound mei (may), means either buy or sell depending on the tone used. This obviously can create confusion when suddenly the shopkeeper wonders why a foreigner wants to sell her a bottle of water.

Overall I think i've learnt more chinese from Skye than from my chinese teacher!

Skye's job is touch and go at the moment, whilst I'll leave the details up to Skye, essentially she has very little work to do. I can hear many out there saying, 'lucky her', but the reality is that Skye is trying to build her career and its not being helped by doing nothing of any importance, and dealing with a knob of a boss (he's a German Australian cross, and a strange man!) But there are positives of course. She is heading out on a field trip later this week, I can't pronounce where she is going, so I have no hope of spelling it. Its somewhere in Western China though, and it means an opportunity for her to see some of countryside and get out of Beijing for a while.

What's next, ahhh, me of course! It was only a matter of time until I turned my self-indulgent blog back on myself..... Well I am good. As i mentioned my language skills are ok, but i struggle with pronunciation. But then I can't pronounce many English words correctly so I'm not sure what i expected. We all remember, everybuddy! Having said that, I'm also keen to give it a go, and being an English teacher I am also able to demonstrate or sign just about any word. Seriously, if only I could go back in time 60 years, I'd give Charlie Chaplin a run for his money. The combination of bad Chinese and good sign language means I get my meaning across, even if most Chinese people think I'm crazy.

Talking of crazy I have taught my high level students two new and very important English phrases:

"Are you mental?" and
"You are a Muppet!"

Nothing makes me happier than after I have done some bizarre demonstration, or created some crazy game, to hear the kiddies say, 'are you mental?". I'm even laughing now with the thought.

teaching is bloody great. Sure its fun and the kids are great, but I also have the ability to shape young minds, which sounds tacky but its true and important. Often the kids first and main contact with the foreign is with me. If I act weird or strange, they may well believe all foreigners are weird and strange. Its a lot of pressure, but its great. For example, I was recently teaching a class about Famous and Infamous. They gave me a million people that were famous, all Chinese sporting hero's and actors, but they couldn't think of any for infamous, so I helped them out.......... George W Bush! Yay...

As an aside, did you know the Chinese name for George W Bush, in pinyin (the translation from chinese characters to English letters) is 'Bu Shi' (pronounced Boo Sure). Sounds just like 'Bush' with a chinese accent when you say it. This sounds also means, 'Not right'. Bu is not, and Shi is yes or right.

So when he is introduced, he is being introduced as President Not Right. A fair estimation of the man I believe.

I have been reliably informed that this double meaning is not intended, as the actual characters for Bush are not the same as the characters for not correct, they just sound the same. Still in a country where they believe the number 4 is bad luck because it sounds like the word for death, I can't believe they didn't get the joke when the translated his name!

Here's another nice teaching story, that doesn't involve me warping the young minds of Chinese students:

At the end of every small stars class (under 6's) we have to write in what we call the children's Passports. Its just like a weekly report card. I normally write things like, 'Well done Eric, good effort', or if the kid is naughty, "wow, Frank, you have lots of energy", The kid can't understand, and either can the parents, but we do it anyway. As well as writing comments, we also give the kids stickers. Stickers to a Chinese child are extremely important, they are a status symbols and are not be to taken lightly. I found this out first hand, when a little girl, Katherine, got to the front of the passport line, but didn't have her passport. I was forced to send her away sticker-less. I obviously very nicely said, ask your mum where your passport is and come back', well, this was clearly unacceptable, and she opened a barrage of Chinese on me like no other. Absolute nonstop abuse, until her face turned red. This was made worse when I said, "Wo Ting Bu Dong" which means, "I can hear you, but can't understand", I thought she was going to stab me. Meanwhile the other kids, sensing that my life on this earth was coming to an end, were rushing to get their stickers before Katherine killed me with her bare hands.

Filthy on the world and especially me, Katherine spun around and marched out, no doubt to tell her mum that the hairy monster refused to give her a sticker (or in fact the several stickers she deserved for behaving impeccably all class). When she returned she had her mum in toe. Katherine was fuming and her mum was ashen faced as if she too had copped a barrage of abuse. He mother explained that she and not Katherine was to blame for the missing passport and was it possible for Katherine to have a sticker anyway, and placed on her hand. I gave Katherine a sticker, and as if my magic, the anger dissipated, she smiled, gave me a hug and said Bye Bye.

Never, and I mean never, get between a Chinese kid and a sticker. Its not worth it.

Well folks that's about all I got for now. I am planning on writing some retrospective stories about the Great Wall incident, and a few others things that have been going on, but they will have to wait sorry.

Photo's

Here's a whole bunch of photo's of Beijing to give you a feel for the place. Enjoy



Outside the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square:

The Boss

'Nut Bush City Limits'

The Forbidden City:

Forbidden my arse...

Its huge!

No room for subtley in China...



The lovely Skye taking great photo's.

Check out the blue sky... if you check my previous blog you may see the picture but with a slightly different 'aura'.


The Great Wall:
The wall is very cool. Its also bloody every where. This section is probably the best, because as you can see its almost tourist free!!! There is a story that goes with our visit to the wall, I just haven't had time to pen it. It involves mysterious touts, crazy cab drivers, getting fleeced and at least one near death experience...

Only two shots, the pollution was bad during our visit!

Our House:

Pretty nice, huh!

Our View:

These photo's were taken during the Olympics... hence no cars... the story is very different now!